


They Don't Understand You Until it's Too Late

by oppressa



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Azazel Being an Asshole, Childhood Trauma, Dimension Travel, Fights, Gen, Infact this is all just really weird, Kurt tries to rebel god bless him, Non-Consensual Violence, Raven to the rescue again, Weird Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:18:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7761184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oppressa/pseuds/oppressa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>His father tells him he is a prince among demons, but he's also fond of saying “You're lucky I didn't drop you into a volcano the day you were born.”</p><p>AKA an AU where Kurt is raised by Azazel and doesn't stay innocent for long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Don't Understand You Until it's Too Late

He's a great disappointment to his father, being unlike him in more or less any fashion except the physical resemblances of their forms, which are shared by every other demon anyway. He isn't as terrifying as even those lesser entities unrelated to them, and he cannot create fire, only tendrils of a wispy black smoke. He has very little bloodlust, bordering on none. Yes, sometimes he has snapped and killed people, victims Azazel brings him from the human world, when pushed and shoved. He just never takes any pleasure in it, he allows them to die too quickly for his father's liking. Nothing he does to prolong their suffering is ever enough.

His father tells him he is a prince among demons, but when Kurt has displeased him he's also fond of saying “You're lucky I didn't drop you into a volcano the day you were born,” as he shackles him to the wall in a cave among the bones of his enemies. The remains of people that probably never did anything wrong, except to anger him.

Kurt screeches after him that he thinks he isn't, at all.

This is all because he reminds him of his mother, yet Kurt doesn't remember her face. Every now and again, in trying to sleep, he thinks he hears her voice in his ears. He thinks someone – not her but maybe someone close to her – might be searching for him, in the dark, calling him by his name. He's kept his human name because Azazel couldn't be bothered to name him anything else. Although she wasn't human, he knows that much. No human woman would have been strong enough to bear a demon's child, weakling though he turned out to be.

Asking about her – who she was, where she is, why he can't go and live with her – is something that leads to the punishment of being dumped in the mass-grave cavern and when he's eventually freed, Azazel throws a salve at his head for the places where the power dampening chains that stop him teleporting rubbed him raw, and barks at him to get on with his chores.

 

He had learned to fight, or at least to put up a fight, by the time he was fourteen. It mostly involved throwing a punch and ducking out of his father's reach, but inevitably he'd get too close, enough to be pulled forward, spun around with his feet off the floor, jabbed at repeatedly until he was too exhausted to move. That was Azazel playing with him. Sometimes it felt like fun, but only sometimes.

“Are you waiting for me to be able to beat you?” He'd groaned recklessly, when the frustration had gone to his head.

His father laughed. “Don't despair, my son. One day you'll be strong. Enough for what you're intended for, anyway.”

He never dared to ask what that was.

 

He also fought with other boys, with more success, though they're all bigger than him, if not taller. At seventeen, it becomes clear he's not going to grow any broader. Still, he has an agility that confounds them, something he's worked on to defend himself against accusations that Azazel's son should be such a runt.

 

On his eighteen birthday, Azazel leads him into a swamp far from the mountain range where they live and abandons him to find his own way back. He keeps teleporting into just more muck and he thinks about not trying, just dying out here in the waste. He only makes it home when the fires burn at night to show him where it is.

He's staggering by the time he gets back to the red rocks. She – it is a she and that's uncommon enough, and she is a cool colour not often seen here except in vapours – seems to be waiting for him, although that can't be. He's meant to attack anyone trespassing in Azazel's domain.

Kurt creeps closer, keeping to the shadows, wanting to give himself every advantage, considering how dangerous she looks. He isn't even within spitting distance before he sees him.

He runs and launches himself at her, and is knocked down, then they're rolling on the ground. She's slippery, he can't even get a hold, realising her skin is covered in some kind of scales. He's still taking that in when her arm slams across his face and he sinks his teeth into it on instinct. An elbow crunches into his gut and he's forced to let go.

“Give in.” She says, shaking off his now-feeble grip, standing above him. Well, that's not what she says, he doesn't understand her language, but that feels like it. He clutches his side, and teleports away to have another try. She looks at him, barely managing to stand upright, chest heaving, face distorted in pain.

She says something else. Later on, he'll know it was _Stop, Kurt._

He leaps at her feet-first and lands one solid kick, flipping back before she can touch him.

“If you're going to do this, at least be a man about it.” She gasps, in his own tongue.

“What?” He snarls, the pride Azazel has placed in him about who he is getting the better of him. “Who even are you to say that to me?”

“You really don't know?”

She beckons him in. He takes the bait, rearing forward to fight her hand to hand, though he knows she's too good for him, Azazel's training in this area didn't take. He's holding his own, though, until her fist gets through his guard and collides with his face. He twists around and drops on his knees, to make her think he's done, and then teleports with what he thinks is the element of surprise. But she somehow anticipated where he'd be. There's a blow to the back of his head, and he falls forward, just about conscious of her catching him before he hits the ground.

 

He's in a _bed_ , something he's only read about in stories of the human realm. The feeling of comfort nearly prevents him becoming aware of the fact there's someone in his mind. But she's there, as well, he can smell her faint signifying scent. The unfamiliar presence is gone almost as soon as he wakes up, though it has the effect that he can understand what they're saying.

“Please, Charles. Don't turn him away. He's only done what he knows how to do.”

The man's soft voice he recognises from his dreams says, “I realise that, Raven.” _That must be her name_. “Hank should have a look at him too, you know.”

“I want to talk to him first.”

“But of course, of course. I'll leave you in peace for the time being.”

Kurt frowns and doesn't open his eyes until he leaves, though he knows Kurt's awake, sensed it before he did.

 

When he's sure they're alone, he takes a peek through his heavy lids. She's still sitting alongside him, and he focuses on her because the background of a room with all the wooden and material things is too confusing.

“Hello.” She says, and smiles as he mimics her, haltingly.

“Did I hit you too hard?” She asks, switching to demon speech. “You were really tiring me out. I figured there wasn't any other way.”

He shakes his head, though he can still feel it when he does that. “How is it you can speak like us?”

“Your father taught me, when we were in love. I'm a bit rusty these days. Can you sit up?”

He makes an effort to come out of the sheets, bowing his head low so she can see how his spine shows. How his whole body is scratched and battered and scarred. How he has one of his first kill's fangs driven through his ear, which is mild by demon standards, but he's still worried he looks so feral to her, and if she's going to reject him he wants it to be quick.

She opens her arms, and suddenly he's in them, being both squeezed and gentled the way he's felt so bad for wanting his entire life, except not any more, now it's happening.

“I couldn't come until you were eighteen, that was the deal we made. I thought it would be better for you to grow up in your natural environment because that's what I would have chosen for myself, if I had one. But I _always_ wanted you.”

“Do I have to go back?”

“I wouldn't, if I were you. You failed to kill me. He'll be very angry about that.”

He looks down, remembering how he _tried_. “Does he even love me?”

“Oh, yes. In his way.”

Kurt thinks about why he was stranded on that particular day, away from anywhere Raven might try to find him.

“Look, there's a bunch of people your own age here. You'd enjoy it if you stay, I promise.”

“Do I have to learn how to be more like them?”

“Probably. But it's easy, Kurt. I'll help you with it, how's that?”

He ends up saying yes, of course, and he doesn't regret it, even as she explains the concept of a school to him. It sounds like there won't be any teaching here that's as harsh as his father's. His mother seems just as tough, but she is the part of him that was missing, he's sure of it, and if this is where she is this is where he belongs. He just feels kind of sick at the thought of all the introductions that need to be made.

“No one's going to bother you any time soon.” She assures him. “This is my room. You stay here and get adjusted for as long as you want.”

She presses her lips against his forehead, and he grips her wrist. “What was that? What's that...called?”

“It's called a kiss. There are girls here, Kurt. You might have to get used to it.”

“I don't know what that means --”

She laughs, and her laughter is the most jarringly hoarse yet pleasant sound. He lies back, resting his hands over his chest, wondering if this is what made the memory of her too painful for his father to take.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Kosheen, "Hungry".  
> This was probably written waaay too quickly given all the stuff I tried to shove into it, *sigh*. And I found out there are featured female demons in the comics who are like really cool afterward, and probably Azazel's race never even refer to themselves as demons, but never mind...it can't be any more selective with the source material than the movies themselves, I guess.


End file.
